Austrian companies boost service sector

A massive 85% of the 26,172 business start-ups in Austria are operating in the promising service sector.

According to the latest figures published by Statistics Austria , 26,172 new companies were founded in Austria in 2010. Measured against the total number of active companies on the market (405,675), this represents a start-up rate of 6.5%. In contrast to the previous year, the number of new companies founded was up by 0.3 percent points and 2.4 jobs were created on average per start-up.

Overall 85% of business start-ups in Austria were in the service sector: the majority of these were in “trade” (5,032), in “freelance/technical services” (4,447) and in “hospitality and catering” (3,352). 69.1% of the year’s start-ups were one-man businesses, 17% were public limited companies and the remaining 13.9% were non-incorporated firms and other business types. With 6,268 start-ups, the capital of Vienna had the lion’s share of new businesses formed.